This invention relates to telephone communications control systems.
Many organizations gather and distribute information in the course of telephone calls serviced at least in part by members of a staff of attendants. Such organizations include major corporations which conduct television or other media advertising campaigns to encourage customers and potential customers to call the organization via a telephone number that is toll-free to the caller. The area code "800" is used in the United States for such toll-free telephone numbers. As for gathering and distributing information, this typically entails having a service attendant elicit the caller's name and address and some kind of ordering information for goods or services and then provide information such as price and delivery information. In some of the many varied situations, the organization is providing "help" to a customer concerning use of the organization's goods or services, including goods such as retail computer programs and services such as repair or maintenance services under a warranty.
Other such organizations include non-commercial public broadcasting stations which solicit contributions from the viewing public to defray the cost of providing the broadcast services. Typically, such stations receive volunteer help from a large group of people who serve as an attendant staff to service incoming calls. Often during such fund raising telecasts, the public broadcasting station shows not only the persons who encourage viewers to call, but also the staff of service attendants who occupy desks on a stage and use telephone station sets specifically dedicated for use by the attendants in servicing incoming calls.
As to commercial television stations, they often broadcast telethons to raise money for charity and likewise need a large group of people to service incoming calls. Religious and other non-commercial organizations also use telecasts to encourage viewers to call the organization to receive pamphlets and other materials of interest.
In each of the above-described situations, there is a need to provide, in a systematic and orderly way, for prompt and efficient servicing of the calls.
Providing attendant service for multiple incoming calls at the same time requires multiple incoming lines. Unless a sufficient number of incoming lines are provided to meet the needs of peak volume traffic, incoming callers will have to wait for service, and the longer the wait, the higher the percentage of callers who will hang up before receiving service. A tariff charge must be paid by the subscriber for every incoming line. Further, if the incoming line is one which provides for toll-free dialing, the subscriber must pay usage charges for the line. Thus, a substantial expense can be incurred in subscribing to and using many lines.
It is highly desirable to minimize the percentage of time that is spent on what can be categorized as overhead time, such as time spent in completing a connection between an incoming line allocated to a call request and a line to an attendant station.
As a result of advances in technology, particularly in digital data processing and digital switching techniques, and as a result of substantial efforts in research and development, various electronic systems have been developed to perform complex functions in controlling telephone communications lines. These electronic systems include very powerful PABXs (private automatic branch exchanges), ACDs (automatic call distributors), and the like. An ACD system is designed to perform functions to provide for uniformly distributing incoming calls among members of an attendant service staff.
Another type of electronic system that is of interest as background is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,859,473 to Brown et al., titled "Centralized Attendant Service Arrangement for PABX Complex." An object of the system Brown et al. disclose is to provide a centralized attendant service (CAS) arrangement which permits all incoming calls to a complex of PABXs to be handled at a single attendant position location. Another type of electronic system that is of interest as background is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,881,060 to Connell et al., titled "Emergency Reporting System. " The system Connell et al. disclose is directed to providing features to facilitate routing of incoming calls originated by dialing a universal emergency number, such as "911," to a selected community emergency service center. The incoming calls are routed on the basis of where the originating station is located so that each such emergency call is answered at the community emergency center that serves that location.
Despite these advances in technology and despite the substantial effort in research and development, there has continued to be a need for a system to facilitate handling multiple incoming calls, in an efficient way.